Foka 4

The Story of Herbert Henry Hobbs

Herbert was born on February 4th, 1898. He enlisted in July 1916 at Adelaide. At the end of the next month he boarded the HMAT Anchises and traveled to Europe. He disembarked at Plymouth in October. On the 12th of that month he marched into the 12th training battalion at Codford.

Three days after Christmas 1916, Herbert boarded the Princess Clementine and headed for France.
On arrival in France Herbert spent some time unattached in Etaples, until in early February he was taken on strength by 48 Battalion.

Eight days later, on the 14th, he was wounded by shrapnel in his left foot.

Passing through the 12th Australian Field Ambulance for a short time, Herbert spent the next month in hospital in Rouen. He finally rejoined his unit on the 29th of March.

Thirteen days after rejoining his unit he was reported missing in action.

A court of enquiry was held in December which found that Herbert must have been killed in action.
Herbert appears to have only spent a total of 21 days with his unit up to the time of his death.
As late as 1918 Herbert’s family was still being advised he was missing. The Red Cross continued to look for him amongst prisoners as late as October 1919. No evidence of what happened to him was ever discovered.His father collected Herbert’s medals and other mementoes in January of 1923.

France, Belgium and The UK

Individual cemeteries are not named on these maps as they are too close together. The memorial with 7 Quorn soldiers names is Villers Brettoneux.

The Middle East and Australia

As further research to my Quorn project I have plotted the locations of the graves (red) or memorials (green) if no known grave exists.

The only exception to this is the memorial to Charles Patten whose story has not been published yet.


Charles was member of the Australian Light Horse. He was captured by the turks in Katia and held in Ankara (Angora as it was known then) as a POW. He died of malaria in hospital there and was buried in an unmarked grave which could not be found after the war. Charles' official memorial is now in Baghdad's North Gate War Cemetery in Iraq.

Melbourne Monday

Melbourne on a sunny Monday.

Auckland

Visited the museum and went for a walk around the city.
Stained Glass in the foyer ceiling.














Moari war canoe.


















The Auckland Skytower.



You can pay to jump off it if you like. We went up to the top at 220 m, thencontinued our walk around the city. We had lebanese pizzas and then went to the cinema, but we both fell asleep and missed the end of the film as we had only had about 4 hours sleep each, since leaving Niue.

Leaving Niue...

At very early o'clock in the morning. The plane turned up about 40 minutes late. We didn't leave till after 03:00

The road to Avatele

The road to Avatele with jungle and Lianas.

Anapala Chasm

Walking for a short distance through the forest (off the vehicle track) leads to a very steep descent, down damp steps and finally to the bottom of the Anapala chasm. I think it is fresh water, but I didn't try it. Like Matapa the frsh water flows out and mixes with the sea water.

Gothic City

Gothic City, one of the dive sites off the south coast of Niue. This site isn't commonly visited, said Anne. The waves at Niue often come from the south east, driven by the trade winds, so Gothic City is not normally accessible. Luckily the swell was small enough for Anne to venture around to the site. After carefully mooring the zodiac to the permanent mooring we got in the water with haste. The swell was still quite uncomfortable. However, once in the currents were quite manageable. 20m down and there were lots of impressive coral growths.